Mosaic Murals - Ken Pirtle

Ken Pirtle is a genius! He created his own system to take an image and turn it into a mosaic. Not just any mosaic though...his are huge! His last one covered an exterior wall at Amarillo College.


Ken takes a scenic image and uses 3/4" vitreous glass tile to pixelate the image. He then hand selects the best color matches for the glass tile. He uses the 3/4" tiles since there are so many color options available. Using tile grids and mounting paper, he then meticulously lays out the mosaic by his computer diagram.

You can see his work in progress here. He shows the steps they took to install it. This is fascinating. The cool thing about this type of mosaic installation is that it doesn't look like much when you are right up on it but from afar the image is clear.

His latest project is another scenic landscape that will soon be installed at the Amarillo Botanical Gardens. It will be 9ft x 22ft. This equals over 38,700 vitreous tiles! I can't wait to see finished pictures!

http://web.me.com/kenneth.pirtle/Ken_Pirtles_site/Welcome.html

The Color Blue

Blue...what a great color to mosaic with. We have more tiles in blue shades than any other. There is cobalt blue, aqua blue, denim blue, metallic blue, iridescent blue, and on and on.

So why so many blues? Blue is one of the most popular colors in our culture. It is very calming while reminding us of sky and water. It is so soothing that blue makes a great color for bedrooms (to help you sleep). However it is not recommended for kitchens as it supposedly decreases appetites.

So what can you do with blue in a mosaic...anything. There are so many shades of aqua that you can create a gorgeous watery scene that shows all of the waves and unrest of an ocean or lake. Then there is the sky. Using the rich cobalt blues will create an evening sky scene that will take your breath away.

The great thing about the aquas is that you can blend them with blues and greens to give your image some movement. The cobalts blend very well with purples for a majestic tone. While the denim blues move towards gray so they can be used together to give some umph to your gray scenes.

Whether it is the Art Tile Collection, AfterGlow, or Brushstrokes, you will certainly find enough shades of blue to make your next project breath taking.

Grout Colorant

Grout colorant is a concentrated cement dye. It can be used to tint your grout and thinset. It is very strong so a little goes a long, long way. If you are going to tint a cup of grout, you can get a strong color by using as little as a teaspoon of colorant!

Since these are tints, you can mix them to make unusual shades. I love to mix one colorant into a particular color of grout to make subtle changes. For instance, the terra cotta grout is a too orange for me so I soften it by adding the brown colorant. It makes it much more earthy.

I always add the colorant to white grout or thinset but I have friends that always add it to gray grout and thinset. The colors aren't as pastel looking and less vivid.

The only drawback to using the grout colorant is that you have a huge chance of never matching up the grout if you have to mix a second batch. If you have a large area to grout and you are going to need to mix your grout several times to get the job done, make sure to measure the colorant carefully and write down how the ratio of grout to colorant. This way you can mix it the same every time and hopefully your grout will match with each new mixture.

Showroom By Appointment Only

When we set our new showroom hours 2 weeks ago, we said it was experimental. We have now decided to make our showroom by appointment only. There are many reasons behind this but we feel this will be best for our business relationships across the Tulsa area.

Our office hours will be 9 to 5 CST. You can reach us by phone during this time.

If you want to go shop around and see some great mosaic supplies in Tulsa, we recommend Tulsa Stained Glass at 41st and Memorial. They have great hours and are even open on Saturdays. They also carry most of our products.

If you are not in Tulsa, we have other distributors across the nation. Email us to find out where. And, of course, you can also buy from us online.

I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone too much. Feel free to give us some feedback on this.

Mosaic with Seed Beads

Using only glass tile can get difficult. What if you want vibrant hot pink flowers or a lime green lizard? You will have trouble finding glass tile in these wild colors. However you can usually find them in glass beads. Beads come in a large variety of colors and sizes. The larger the bead the harder it will be for you to make your image "appear". So you need to use the smaller beads for a better effect. Seed beads can give you that look without breaking it up.

The thought of placing seed beads in your mosaic may make you cringe. Try gluing in all of those tiny little pieces one at a time...DON'T. Most artists will put a large glob of glue and press the beads into the glue. No way should you ever try doing them one at a time. They are just too small.

One of my clients, Sherry Elmore, brought in a piece yesterday that I fell in love with. She loves the glass tiles, especially the Art Tile Minis. However she wanted a gold for the focal point of this piece. The Seville Gold wasn't what she was looking for and she didn't want to do jewelry. So she came up with seed beads.

Now you can see by the finished piece that she had a definate design to follow. We spent some time figuring out the best way to keep the pattern and grout before laying the beads. You do not want to try to grout and clean seed beads! Sherry bought some thin craft foam from Hobby Lobby and cut it to make the ribbon design. She glued this onto her Wedi board and then laid the black background tiles cutting them to go around the foam. She then grouted the entire thing. After cleaning out the foam areas she filled the void with Weldbond then smashed in the seed beads.

After finishing the entire piece she sprayed it with an adhesive spray and framed it. This was a wonderful gift for her parent's anniversary. Great job Sherry!

New Showroom Hours

The new school year has began in Oklahoma. With this comes lots of schools wanting mosaic education. So we have decided to close our showroom one day a week to work with the local schools. Our warehouse and shipping department will still be running on schedule.

The magic day is Wednesday. This seems to fit the needs of our schools the best. Since we won't be in the schools every week, we will be available on Wednesdays by appointment. Just give us a call and we will schedule you to come in.

Our new hours will begin September 1, 2008. This all on a trial basis and will let you know if we decide to make any changes.

Wheeled Cutter Coupon

Wheeled cutters are the only tool that we recommend for use with our glass tile. They cut the glass rather than crush it and are vital when doing any installation or glass tile project.

It does take some practice to get a really good cut and often times you won't get it perfect. Glass just has a mind of its own. Here is a link to a walk through of how to cut the tiles. You can also read an article that we wrote about how to cut efficiently.

Since these are so important, we are offering a one time, one use coupon that will give you 50% off one pair of cutters. The code is blogger08022008.